The merger, which was initiated over a year ago, saw four Nigerian businesses – Jobberman, Cheki, Private Property and The African Talent Company – becoming a part of the group that connects buyers and sellers using technology.
Other businesses that make up ROAM are Expat-Dakar and MaMaison in Senegal; BrighterMonday in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda; ZoomTanzania in Tanzania; Pigiame and BuyRentKenya in Kenya; Classifieds.co.zw and Property.co.zw in Zimbabwe; and LexpressClassifieds, LexpressProperty and LexpressCars in Mauritius.
ROAM also has businesses in Ghana, Ethiopia and South Africa.
Speaking in Lagos at the launch of ROAM, the Head of Verticals Jobs, Opeyemi Awoyemi, said that preparations had been made to ensure shareholders would get returns on their investment over the last one year when the merger was initially announced.
Opeyemi said, “Over the last one year, we have been preparing that foundation to win, become the biggest platform to connect people to opportunities in Africa and give returns to our shareholders. There are a lot of new things to come. A lot of technology improvements in the last one year including consolidation of platforms and deploying new marketing and thinking into our new platform. We have deployed Chatbots, which is a new technology for jobs.”
He stated that the group was formed with the investment made by over 20 shareholders, consisting of Ringier, a Swiss-owned family business, Tiger Global, SEEK in Australia, some shareholders in Nigeria, South Africa and entrepreneurs spread across Africa.
Speaking on the market for cars in the country, the Chief Executive Officer, Cheki, Gbenro Dara, said, “Over the last three years, the volume of cars on our platform has reduced but the number of dealers has increased. Our major differentiating factor is quality experience for both buyers and sellers. We are hoping there will be changes to spur the growth of this sector through the automotive policy of the government.”
A consultant with TATC, Adesina Ogidan, said, “TATC is the end-to-end arm of Jobberman that focuses on senior level, managerial and C-level roles. We are a people-inclined business. Jobberman stated in 2009 and from 2009 till now, a lot of people have gathered experience and have gone to become managers; so we target them.”
The ROAM CEO, Clemens Weitz, said, “We are privileged to contribute to the positive disruption that digital solutions bring to our African markets. Many markets are still highly non-transparent, informal and fragmented. Buyers are typically overcharged due to asymmetrical information, and jobseekers defrauded by fake companies. Our goal is to empower Africans through transparency, and transform markets through technology.
“We celebrate this merger as a major milestone, from which not only ROAM but also our users and small medium-sized entities will profit significantly, for example, by extended reach or accessing a new range of products.”
PUNCH
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